Fourth Wall

"Does the actor who plays Matilda's dad really not like people who read?"

Virginia and I went to see the musical Matilda recently. Near the end of intermission, Matilda's dad and brother came on stage, while the house lights were still up. They sang a song about how smart people who watch the "telly" are and then Matilda's dad talked directly to the audience. He asked people who like to read to raise their hands. He asked for the name of one of the women in the front row and then made fun of her for being a bookworm.

I thought this was a nice way to gather the audience back to their seats for the second half of the musical. But I hadn't realized the impact this part of the show had on Virginia. She was confused about whether the man was in character or not.

During the rest of the show the "fourth wall" was up. The actors did not interact with the audience. And with the stage lights up and house lights down, they couldn't even see the audience. What happened at the end of intermission was totally different. The actors could see us and invited interaction. The fourth wall was down.

I find it especially fascinating that to Virginia, the fourth wall helped signal that what was going on on stage was acting. A lack of fourth wall, to her, signaled authenticity. She thought it might not be acting, but the actor being himself and expressing true opinions.

This is relevant to my research. In studying reality storytelling, I am very interested in how people both perform and deliver authenticity. Storytelling in general does tend to be more interactive than staged plays and musicals (although, not always). And in reality storytelling being "real" seems to be especially important. It makes sense that the fourth wall has a relationship with, at least, the appearance of authenticity.

I appreciated seeing the fourth wall from the perspective of someone for whom live theater is a more new experience.

Repeating History

They say those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I struggled with history in grade school. The entire curricular area of "Social Studies" was my worst subject. Possibly this came from the memorization of states, countries, and capitals that inevitably accompanied geography lessons. I do remember thinking that history was boring, but I can't tell you now what specific part of history I found so uninteresting.

I mostly just knew I wasn't good at Social Studies. In high school, while striving to get into the highest level Math, Science, and Language Arts classes I could, I held back on Social Studies. My Junior year I declined to take Advanced Placement (college level) American History and happily signed up for Gifted American History instead. My teacher (who taught both classes) gleefully told us on the first day that since we were gifted, she expected we could do the AP curriculum without the benefit of the extra ten points. (Ten points were added onto your final grade in AP classes, effectively bumping you up a letter grade.) I almost died when she said that. I was trying to get into a class that was easier, not harder. One of the things that probably saved me, was an assignment to read a historical fiction novel that related to what we were studying that year and then schedule a private discussion with the teacher about the book. I read The Grapes of Wrath which is my favorite book to this day. (Possible foreshadowing of my ability to access history through story.)

My senior year there was no Gifted option for the two semester-long Social Studies courses we had to take, Government and Economics. I took them both as AP courses and spent the year in the back of the class writing dirty poetry with my friends, making very little effort to learn anything. I got a good enough score on the Econ exam to get college credit. Near the beginning of our Economics text book it said that if you had a parrot who could say "supply and demand" you had an economist. I guess I was the parrot.

Me as an economist

I scored too low on the Government exam to get college credit. I answered all of the Government essay questions with (not dirty) poems.

I continued to struggle with Social Studies in college. As a Latin/English double major I had to take an American History class and Political Science. If I had taken AP American History in high school and gotten a decent score on the exam I could have gotten out of it in college. And if I had scored better on the AP Government exam I would have gotten out of PoliSci. Unfortunately my credit for Econ didn't exempt me out of anything.

I withdrew from a huge lecture hall American History class I was failing during my Freshman year. I later took PoliSci taught by a graduate student who had a smaller class, realized that format worked much better for me, and held out for American History taught by a grad student before I signed up for it again.

And then I was done with Social Studies forever!!!!

Except not really. As an English and Latin major I frequently learned about the historical context of the things I was reading. This was okay with me because it was "interesting" history, related to things I liked.

But now that I am a storyteller, history won't seem to leave me alone. When John and I moved to England, I researched and created a story about Boudica, since we were moving to the region she was from. I was rereading authors I had translated in Latin classes, so the project was well within my historical comfort zone.

Most of the volunteer work I did in England, though, was with the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library. I knew that the library was a living memorial for Americans who were stationed in Norwich during World War II, but when requesting to volunteer with them, I had focused more on the fact that they had a collection of American books. I did some programs on American culture for them - reading pictures books, telling stories. But they also wanted programs related to World War II. I taught myself quickly from their books. Soon I was telling school children about my experiences as an American in Norwich, how my experiences related to the experiences of the Americans who were stationed in Norwich during WWII, and then all about the airplanes.

After we moved back to the Atlanta area I got involved in a couple of shows that had me researching Georgia history. I portrayed Mayhayley Lancaster, a legendary south Georgia seer, at Frolona Fest, a roots music festival put on by Frolona Farm. I also researched the Battle of Atlanta to add some real Civil War history to an old ghost story I told for BATL.

Most recently I have been invited to perform at the National History Fair. I will be telling stories from mythology and ancient history as well as discussing some of the historical context surrounding the stories.

Telling stories of Trojan women at UGA's Athenaze in 2007

The middle schoolers who will be at the National History Fair are so very different from who I was in middle school - namely someone totally disinterested in history.

Students have reworded the quotation I opened with: Those who fail history class are doomed to repeat it. I never officially failed a history class, but I did a pretty good job of not learning in a few. Now history repeatedly works its way into my storytelling life. I do not see myself as doomed, though. I see myself as fortunate to have a second chance to learn it right.